By Peter Mann, Co-director of the WHY Global Movements Program
Quotes from CSD-17:
“We cannot continue to let transnational corporations control our food.” (Gus Speth)
Against business as usual: “If you do what you did, you get what you got.” (CSD 17 president)
“21st century agriculture must rediscover how to work with nature.” (Tim LaSalle, Rodale)
As the 17th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development came to a close, I felt excited at several signs of change and at the same time frustrated by so much business as usual. The meetings happened at a time of multiple crises – food, energy, health, the economy, and the global financial system. Catastrophes have a way of focusing the mind, and we heard numerous testimonies from government and UN officials that we are in a crisis and that this is no time for business as usual. However, business as usual kept blocking real progress.
One sign of change was that delegates are awakening to the reality of climate change as a factor in the current food crisis, and a threat of future crises. UNEP’s remarkable report, “The Environmental Food Crisis: The Environment’s Role in Averting Future Food Crises,” was widely discussed among delegates and governments. The business as usual factor is that its proposals for an ecosystem approach to agriculture were missing from the official texts. One theory is that the agrochemical industry had used its influence behind the scenes.
Another excellent report was “The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology (IAASTD)” that promotes massive investment in agro-ecological initiatives and small-scale farming. Scientists, activists, UN agencies and 58 governments had endorsed the report, but it too was largely missing from the CSD texts. Perhaps it was eclipsed by the UN’s high-level support for “The New Green Revolution in Africa” which brings together what has been called “philanthro-capitalism,” UN agencies, biotech and chemical companies, and allied NGOs.
Another bright spot, as usual, was the youth contingent. Their interventions were eloquent, incisive, and visionary and received spontaneous applause from the assembled delegates. Young people at CSD are impressively well-organized and hopeful. At the same time, having attended most CSD meetings since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, I was reminded of the many organizations and networks that have largely left these UN meetings behind – organizations such as the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), and La Via Campesina. When CSD becomes talk about talk, or jargon about jargon, and no longer action oriented, it becomes business as usual.
Nevertheless, CSD remains necessary. It is the only UN forum that looks at all the issues through the lens of sustainable development. It has been instrumental in raising global awareness of sustainability, and where countries such as those in the Nordic region have developed their own Agenda 21s – Agendas for Sustainable Development in the 21st century – it has been transformative.
However, the usual images of sustainable development – the three pillars of environment, economy, and equity, - seem to me inadequate for the crises we face. An alternative graphic I saw was of three concentric circles, with the outer encompassing circle being environmental capital, the middle one social capital, and the inner circle economic capital. Unless our everyday economy and our social world are rooted in the earth’s economy, we will create ever deeper economic and social crises. That will demand a great transformation that our present political systems, and business as usual at CSD, are not yet able to create.
There is something burdensome about listening to speeches in the basement – the “catacombs” of the UN. CSD would be very different if it happened in the farms and gardens of the member states. And in a marvelous way, that became possible during the City Farms tour that WHY helped to organize, and the Youth Market that WHY supported. UN delegates from around the world mingled with New York’s farmers and gardeners, and it became clear that food and agriculture are not part of the problem, but can be - and increasingly are - part of the solution"
